


A Covid Tale

by soignante



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Alternate Universe, COVID19, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soignante/pseuds/soignante
Summary: Based on a prompt:Erik is a successful film score composer, but no one knows him. Fronted by the much more palatable Nadir Kanan, his real identity remains a secret and the man himself remains a hermit....until a pandemic comes along and ushers in an era of masks.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 24
Kudos: 45
Collections: Phantom of the opera





	1. Empty Streets

Years. How many years had it been since he’d walked among them, as one of them? Not since the latex mask and its disastrous end. Still a young man when he finally gave up on acceptance and turned to the silent comfort of a loft in Nadir’s penthouse (compliments of Erik’s wildly successful film scores, published in Nadir’s unblemished name), Erik had years in which to grow older and more bitter.   
“But not wiser,” he chuckled darkly to himself.   
No, because…if he were wiser, he would not be watching the news over Nadir’s shoulder with growing giddiness. If he were wiser, he would be as somber as Nadir as he listened to the fatality rate, the closings, the shutdowns, and the cancellations.   
“What?” Nadir cranked his neck to look back and up at the most confusing friend he’d ever had.   
Erik composed himself rapidly, dropping the excitement into a blank ennui so deep it seemed no expression could ever have been present.   
“Only pointing out that people will be no wiser for all this…” he gestured at the talking heads pointing at graphs of exploding cases.   
“No. People will be their reliable, foolish selves. We can count on that.” Nadir casually clicked over to ‘his’ business email account. “Thank goodness you compose; it looks like performing is off the menu for the foreseeable future. And it’s not like you have to worry about catching the plague, yourself. You haven’t left in years”   
“…you must be so relieved.” Cold and precise, the cut sliced home. “Your cash cow is safely penned.”   
Nadir’s exhausted half-retort followed Erik up the ladder, “Oh, come on, man! It’s not like that.”   
It was exactly like that, though, and they both knew it. He couldn’t go out there without attracting attention, and where he was concerned there was no such thing as good attention. He would tolerate no thought of exposing himself again to the literal sticks and stones of a nasty, brutish world. He was stuck and had been for years. Until now. Until Covid19 brought its droplet-borne death and misery to his home country. How glorious! Now, there were masks everywhere. Newsreels showed people walking around masked and no one blinked an eye. No one cared.   
All he needed, he had here. A hat. Some sunglasses. One of Nadir’s hooded sweatshirts with a sarcastic motto on the front. A wide medical mask from the trove his alter-ego had hoarded in early February, even before toilet paper disappeared from the shelves.   
The doorknob turned easily in his hand. There was no thunder, and the only disturbance was ominous mood music playing obnoxiously in his head. Erik paused to allow the universe to intercede. Surely, after all this time and all this loneliness, something more than a will and a way would be needed to leave.   
“Where are you…” Nadir appeared like magic behind him, summoned by the now-unfamiliar sound of the front door opening. “Out,” he said, and went.   
Normally, it would be a relief to see block after deserted block stretching out before him, as though the town were his alone. Today, he’d hoped to press in amongst the pressing crowds, but there was no press. Everyone was at home, obeying the “essential travel only” order. Being safe.   
Still, there was music. The music of city streets and scavenger birds and blowing bits of trash played hollow and hard in his mind’s ear. He followed it with his Noteflight app as he wandered aimlessly through neighborhoods and alleys. A few people appeared here and there; grace notes in a vagrant composition that left the movement of the music undisturbed. They were simple, boring, drab... how disappointing. Still, they did not look at him, and that was a thrill. Chuckling darkly to himself, he realize how like a flasher he was, walking along with a terrible secret hidden behind the thinnest of veils. As the light began to fade, so did the novelty of empty freedom, and he started home.   
“At least the cash cow made some mi-...” He stopped, listened, started moving forward again with renewed vigor.   
Someone was playing one of his works. In seconds he located the sound: a navy-blue Honda Civic of a bygone era vibrating with the strains of one of Erik’s favorite compositions. Inside the car, a woman’s curls fluffed around the headrest. Her eyes were closed, her expression blissful and serene as one hand gracefully drifted in the air, keeping tempo.   
Nadir had made more than one acceptance speech and royalties poured in with reassuring regularity, but this was the first time Erik witnessed a flesh-and-blood human being immersed in his music. In sudden excitement, he almost approached. It was a near thing; his legs were moving before he noticed the urge. Inane and absurd words wanted to escape him: “Hello, I’m Erik, and that’s my music and it seems like you like it. Do you like it?” But he stopped himself in the nick of time. After all, that technically wasn’t his music. The insanely talented Nadir Kanan owned every note. To claim it, to approach a lone young woman and gush at her from behind his ridiculous sunglasses and medical mask, could only make him a madman in her eyes.   
So he watched.   
When the piece ended, the woman sighed and stretched luxuriously. She slid out of the car, closed and locked the door, then jogged up the steps of a nearby townhouse humming all the while. Maybe it was all the years couped up in a loft with only male company. Maybe it was the clear, angelic purity of her voice. Maybe it was that she hummed his music. Whatever the cause, as the door clicked shut, Erik realized that some part of himself was locked on the other side of it with her. Even as his feet carried him unerringly home, the musician knew that he was lost.


	2. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erik returns home:

“You missed your chance to get rid of me!” Erik bellowed as he slapped the unlocked door open.   
Nadir looked up from his phone, briefly, scanning his housemate for wounds or other signs of unfortunate encounters. Seeing nothing unusual, he returned to refreshing the ‘worldometer’ Covid numbers.   
“No one is trying to get rid of you, Erik,” he sighed. “But you should at least take your keys with you.”   
“I don’t have…”  
The words died in his mouth as his eyes followed Nadir’s pointing finger to a hook beside the door with a set of cobwebbed keys dangling from it. ‘So many years,’ he thought. Robbed of a perfectly good swipe at Nadir, Erik slumped towards his loft. All was not lost, however; he had a legitimate complaint.   
“I’ll have you know,” he began climbing the ladder, “that I am in trouble.”  
That brought a response. Nadir stood at the base of the ladder, staring up at him suspiciously, jetty brows furrowed into several wrinkles. The silence stretched on with Nadir waiting expectantly and Erik savoring company in discomfort.   
“Do I have to worry about the cops showing up? Again? Because that was no big deal when we were younger, but I don’t know that I have it in me now.”  
“Don’t worry. I did nothing that you would have advised against.” Erik swung his feet up into the loft.   
“Then how are you in trouble?”  
“I need you to tell a woman who I am.” The voice floated down, blasé and cool.   
Silence descended and reigned unchallenged for many minutes.   
“I have to hear her again.”   
Nadir could hear the steady tread of his friend pacing, could hear tightness that belied his apparent calm. Still no words would come to him. Never, in the nearly three decades that he’d known the man, had Erik ever betrayed the slightest interest in women. Or in men. Or, after The Incident, in people as a whole.   
“Most men would say, ‘I have to see her again…’” he ventured.   
“What the devil do I care about seeing her? What good is that?” The sound of pacing stopped. “No. I need to hear her again. Singing my music.” And suddenly he was clambering down the ladder without his usual grace and heading for the piano. No, not the piano. The violin. It was only as his chin came to rest in the cup that he noticed the medical mask still covering his face. Shrugging, he began to play. “She sounds like this. She sounds like rain on the edge of sunshine, like candlelight on a moonless night.”  
As an unearthly song filled the silence, Nadir tried to predict the catastrophe, and couldn’t. Then he tried to imagine a happy ending. And couldn’t.   
Against his own misgivings, he relented. “I suppose I could tell her for you. What’s her name?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Her address?”  
“I don’t know. In one of the stone townhouse rows to the west.” He played on.   
“You don’t know? Then how do you expect me to…”  
“I don’t.” The music stopped. Erik’s gaze, cold and mesmerizing, pierced him. “I don’t need you to do a thing. You told me once you thought I could play the birds down from the trees. I suppose we find out, now, hmm? Can I play this bird down from her stony cliffs?”  
“Erik…”  
“I do appreciate our little chats.” Erik set his violin back on its stand, then took off the mask and sunglasses. “I shall need to keep this,” he indicated the hoodie. “and those,” he jerked his thumb at the sunglasses.   
With that he was gone up to his loft, leaving Nadir to the fresh dread twining slimy tentacles through his stomach. He could not make sense of Erik’s plan or determine whether his infatuation was with the woman or simply her voice. What he could see was that this was one of Erik’s Things: subjects of hyperfocus so intense he would abandon everything else until he was satisfied. What would satisfaction look like here? Would simply hearing her suffice? Convincing her to sing his music? More? And the thought of Erik in love? It did not bear consideration. It was hard to imagine a more unlovable object than his ugly, cold, world-hardened friend.   
What, then, could he do? Nothing. There was nothing to do but watch, wait, and be ready to pick up the pieces.


	3. The Lure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Erik sets his lure...

‘ _Why can’t we have something like that_ here?’ she thought, drearily.   


Doom-scrolling had almost become a way of life before she tore herself from the increasingly miserable reports of new, terrible facts about the virus slinking its way around the world and directed her attention to better things. Her favorite so far were the musicians on the balconies. All around the world, opera singers and violinists, and pianists led whole neighborhoods in beautiful choruses that lifted spirits and relieved the monotony for a little while. Now, as she listened to an Italian tenor singing _Nessun Dorma_ , Christine wished with all her might for a similar distraction in her own staid neighborhood. She had expressed this wish to her friend Meg, who was no help at all.   


“Well then, _you_ sing, Chris. Why don’t you just open your window and go at it?” And she’d said it in the most maddening ‘isn’t-it-obvious’ tone, as though the whole problem was that easy to solve.

‘ _But I’m not that good,’_ Christine insisted then, and deeply believed now. Her gentrified neighbors would more likely call the police for a disturbance of the peace than join her in song. Besides… and she froze, head cocked to one side, suddenly listening without breathing. Then she was on her feet, running to her window, and opening it wide. There was music! In her neighborhood! Other windows were opening, too, and no one was yelling for quiet. Whoever the violinist was, they were weaving a spell even her bland, unimaginative neighbors could not fight.

Softly, sweetly, the music sighed in the gloaming. Her breath slowed to match its tempo, her eyes drifted closed… but it was so quiet! She wanted to be closer to the sound, to have it force every other noise out of her mind. Though the evening was chilly, she left without coat and without a thought.

Never one for shyness, Christine followed the sound to its tall, thin source. He stood at the corner, back to a tastefully pruned shrub, playing music that was strangely familiar to her. Not the tune, but the flavor, of the music was as familiar to her as her own voice. Until her toes began to numb with the stillness, she stood nearby, listening unobtrusively. It was so good, so perfect, that she forgot about her goosebumps and began feeling around in her pockets. A crumpled five-dollar bill surfaced, and she looked for a donation box. There was none, so she waited for the last note to end.

“Umm, I don’t mean to bug you or anything, but do have a place to put this?” She held out the money apologetically.

The man stared down at her for several seconds, streetlights now reflecting in his sunglasses, without speaking. There was something off about his face, she thought. Something not quite right about the shape behind the mask and under the cinched hoodie, but he was talking to her now in a voice so beautiful that she lost track of her thoughts.

“I don’t play for money,” he said, lowering his violin.

She waited, but he’d said his piece. 

“Then what do you play for?” Later, she would reflect that the line might have been a bit flirty, a little coquettish, but in the moment it didn’t matter. If he would keep talking in that voice like warm buttered syrup, flirty was just fine.

“For you, of course.” He bowed sharply; a musician’s stage bow.

Christine blinked rapidly. “What?”

“For you,” he repeated, gesturing broadly up and down the street at the open windows and people on stoops. “I make music to build a bridge. What else can be done right now?”

She shook her head, looking down, then realized, “Oh god. I’m not wearing a mask. You must think I’m a complete maskhole.” She backed away quickly, giving him 10 feet of safe space.”

“It’s well worth the risk,” he murmured. Then, louder, “Music is always worth the risk.”

“And at least you’re wearing one, so maybe that’s better than nothing, right?” If she’d given this genius the plague and killed him, she’d die of guilt.

Another long silence followed this, during which he began to pack up his instrument. As the latches snapped closed, he began nodding slowly. 

“Yes. I’m wearing a mask, and that’s much better than nothing.” He bowed again and began walking away. “Until next time.”

Christine watched him fade into the darkness until he disappeared, then walked home. She took a moment to knock her head against her wooden door several times before shuffling inside. 

“Way to chase him off, Christine _.”_ He did say “ _until next time,”_ she consoled herself. “Sure. Then I can sneeze on him and seal the deal.”

But when she had settled into bed, when it was perfectly dark and quiet, his melody played soothingly in her mind, crowding out her self-recriminations and lulling her to sleep. 


	4. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nadir's trap closes.

That calm walk lasted about 2 blocks: just long enough to get to nice dark alley with a deeply recessed loading dock. There, the shakes overtook him, weakening his knees until he pressed the rough concrete wall for support. The mask had to come off, as his breath huffed painfully, constricted by a tightness in his chest that had no mercy. He closed his eyes, trying to block out the world, but this only brought on replays of the disaster. His lure worked as he knew it must. She was drawn to the music, as he knew she would be. She came to him easily. If only she were content to listen to the music, but she had not stopped at his offering. She spoke to him, met his eyes, smiled, held out her little five-dollar bill and he could swear that for a moment, just a moment, she saw him. The look in her eyes, the look on her face, the look of her face… 

It drove the life from his fingers. It drove the plan from his mind. The alley lit up as a car slid past, bringing him back to the moment at hand. Once again, he donned the mask and began the walk home, but this time he was aware of every agonizing step. 

Nadir looked up expectantly as the door opened. “So, did the bird sing?”

“You have to kill me.”

“I’m taking that as a ‘no’.” Nadir closed his book and leaned back in his chair. 

“I can’t go back there, and I can’t survive if I don’t hear her again.” Erik casually dropped the sunglasses and mask in Nadir’s lap on his way across the room to their small bar. Half a tumbler of Jameson disappeared before he was willing to say more. “I’ll go out to a hospital and catch this thing. All you’d need to do is let me die; it’d be a kindness.” The other half disappeared with only a slight grimace. 

“Obviously, you’re not going anywhere without a mask. And just as obviously, I’m not going to ‘let you die.’ How many times have I...” Erik stared; Nadir relented. “Never mind. Just tell me what happened?”

“Nothing. Nothing happened.”

“Then why the theatrics? ‘Death, death!’ and so on?”

Erik shook his head. “I don’t even know her name.”

Nadir waved an unconcerned had toward the door. “Go back and ask her.”

“I can never go back.” Erik tested his balance and decided he could make the climb to his space where he could be drunk and miserable in privacy. “She saw me.” He worked hard, concentrating on each hand and foot as they moved. 

“Saw you without the…” Nadir broke off, unsure of his word choice. 

“NO! Gods, no. She saw me, and I forgot how to play the violin.” Erik flopped heavily onto his bed as the world decided to spin. “It just seemed that she knew me.” His words were quieter, now, and Nadir had to strain to hear him. “And she was so close. And she smiled…”

Soon the words would slur, Nadir knew, and his melancholy friend would turn inward immovably. Now was the magic moment when some plain truth could be wrangled out of the man. 

“You saw her smile? She wasn’t wearing a mask?”

“She was so in love with the music that she forgot. Ran out in the cold. No jacket, no mask. The whole time she stood there, she listened, she smiled. At me. And I ran away the moment she spoke to me. Said too much and ran away.” Erik’s voice dripped with such bitter self-loathing Nadir winced in sympathy. “Didn’t even get her name. Or ask her to sing.”

“Then you simply have to go back. Tomorrow.” Soft humming now emanated from the loft. “When you’re sober.”

“Never.”

“Then how will you ever hear her sing again?” Nadir zinged his parting shot, hoping it would stick somewhere in the musician’s sodden mind. 

Silence. Whisky fumes. And finally, 

“You bastard.”

By the time the hangover receded to vague aching nausea the next afternoon, the roommates had managed three separate arguments. In each subsequent argument Erik grew more and more stubborn until Nadir, in desperation, used his nuclear option.

“Erik. I swear that, if you don’t go back and resolve this one way or another, I will stop pretending to be the great composer. I’ll expose you, make you take credit for everything you’ve written. I'll give up this cushy life, and go do accounting somewhere. If you think I’m going to sit around for the next year hearing you moan about death and this woman’s voice, like you did with the Burton project, think again,” he growled, careful to hold Erik's pale gaze with is own, never blinking. 

Alarmed for the first time, Erik searched Nadir’s face for the slightest sign that this might be negotiable or just a smoke screen, but there was no softness in brow, cheek or lip. He meant it. The final straw had descended. The final bridge had been crossed.   
Erik shook his head, gathered his disguise and violin, and headed for the door. “You’ve chosen a strange way to grant my request, my friend. Killing me with kindness, hmm?”

But when he set up on the corner near her home and began to play and the windows opened and the doors opened and people turned to him for beauty and solace, Erik let go of his anger. When she arrived shortly afterwards with a little folding chair, a warm coat, and a mask, he surrendered to his friend’s wisdom. His music flowed from his instrument, softly singing in a nearly human voice. For the space of an hour, the neighborhood rested in a romantic place where the foibles and triumphs of their little lives had their own sound-track.

In the silence that followed his performance, he forced out the words he’d rehearsed on his walk. “I notice you returned. I take it you enjoy the music?”

Her curls bobbed as she nodded agreement. “I figured out what you’re doing, and I think you should know it’s just brilliant.” She stood to meet him in conversation, her violet mask emphasizing the brilliant green of her eyes. “You’re riffing off Kanan’s work. It took me all night and all day, but I figured it out. I knew it sounded familiar.” Those eyes glinted with an impish smile he could not see. 

“You, er, noticed similarities?” he ventured. Of course, he sounded like himself; he’d made no effort to mask his style. 

“Absolutely! But you didn’t play any of his actual stuff. You just borrow his flavor and then decorate it.”

“You’re a fan then?” Try as he might, excitement edged into his voice, sharpening it. 

“Sure! I know everything he’s ever done. On screen and off.” She was grinning, now; the corners of her eyes were pushed into tiny wrinkles and her round cheeks pressured the edges of her mask.

This did not fit his script. It was time to improvise. “What…what would you say if I told you I riff off him because I’m…” He stopped. Thought. Swallowed hard and felt his throat spasm awkwardly. “I’m… his roommate.” Sad trombones waugh-waughed in his ears and he gritted his teeth against them. He couldn’t tell her the truth. Couldn’t.

“I’d say no way.” She pointed to his phone. “Prove it.”

“Sure. I can call him…”

“Facetime. Facetime or it never happened.”

“I don’t have that app.” Erik recoiled at the very thought, but found his fingers downloading the app and texting Nadir a warning. “But, since you insist.” 

She pushed in close to his side, and he had to close his eyes and suck breath at her touch. It was too much, too much. Nadir’s irritated voice called him back to reality.

“What’s the emergency, Erik? I’m making dinner.” Sure enough, Nadir was brandishing a spatula and already wrapped in his robe.

“Well, I’m here with one of your fans and she insisted I call you. She didn’t believe I was roommates with the great Nadir Kanan.” He could only hope the sarcasm in his voice was lost on the lady standing next to him.

“Oh. OH!” Nadir set the spatula down and adjusted the camera to a more flattering angle. “Pleased to meet you Ms.…? Erik? Make introductions, if you would?”

Erik blinked. He looked to his companion. She was staring at the screen, nearly catatonic with fan-worship, whispering, “Wow. WOW. Wow.” 

“Er, miss? I forgot to ask your name.” He had to ask the back of her head, because she did not spare him a single glance as she answered.

“Christine. It’s Christine. Christine Daae. Oh my god, ohmygod, it’s really you!”

Christine poured adulation over Nadir, who deflected her deeper questions with a casual ease developed over years of pretending. Erik stood by and watched with delight at first, then with growing unease. She loved his music. Adored his music. She thought it spoke so highly of him, as a person, because who we are shines through in our art, doesn’t it? But Erik was just the roommate. Just a link in the chain leading to Nadir, and his shelf of awards, and his smooth manners and his thrice-damned handsome face. It was not a role his humble friend took on willingly, either, but played to a T for years. Everyone who was anyone knew him by name, sound, and face. There was no going back. 

The call finally ended, and Christine rounded on Erik. “Did you hear? He said I could get an autograph! He said all I had to do was accompany you for dinner some night!”

Erik just nodded. “I am at your pleasure.”


End file.
